Language Barriers
by ncfan
Summary: Caranthir learns something. He thinks.


I own nothing.

* * *

He'd not been in contact with the Laiquendi community closest to Thargelion in many years, decades even. There was greater enemy activity than usual coming from the north, and Caranthir had needed to focus more on that than he needed to maintain contact with his reclusive neighbors to the south. However, after the scouts reported no more sightings of Orcs and a few winters had passed without disturbing news from the north, Caranthir at last accepted Arodorn's invitation to visit.

It was surprising—Caranthir did not relish social calls, even if he did understand the importance of maintaining good relations with the Laiquendi—but Caranthir found that he was glad he had accepted the invitation.

Caranthir did not have much mastery with the dialect of Nandorin that the Laiquendi community living on the southern banks of the Ascar spoke. Arodorn did not have much mastery in the dialect of Sindarin that Caranthir spoke. He and Arodorn usually utilized translators in order to understand one another. Today, Caranthir had forewent his translator, instead struggling to understand the Nandorin spoken to him. It was more than a little vexing, not understanding most of what was being spoken to him, but for once, it was worth it.

Gladhrien appeared out of the trees, a slight, small form all in green, melting out of the wilderness—that silver hair of hers should have been visible, though. She smiled brightly as she held the bird she had caught with her hands out to him. It amazed Caranthir how some people could do that, coax an animal right into their hands. Celegorm could do it, and he had seen Finrod do it at least once. But he had never possessed that skill. Horses were fine with him, as were any other domesticated animal. Wild animals fled from him. _But I am a hunter. It's only appropriate that they flee._

Caranthir doubted that Gladhrien had ever hunted in her relatively short life. That probably explained this. "A bird," she said with a bright sparkle in her eyes, and said nothing more than that. Maybe there was something more eloquent being said in her mind, but that was the most she could manage in Mithrim Sindarin.

It was a robin she held in her small hands, black-feathered with a red breast. Brow furrowed, Caranthir took the bird from her, praying he wouldn't accidentally crush it—that would spoil the mood like nothing else. The bird trembled in his hands. Caranthir stared down at it. He remembered snapping a rabbit's neck once, in Aman; Aredhel had called him a savage and even Celegorm had wrinkled his nose. He snapped at them for being hypocrites; Aredhel's hands and sleeves were covered in blood and Celegorm was in the process of jointing another rabbit. He was just thinking, now, that it would probably be easier to kill this bird with one press of the thumb than it had been the rabbit, and that hadn't been too hard to start with.

But Caranthir did not press his thumb down on the bird. Instead, he held it gingerly in his hands. "…Thank you?" he said uncertainly, trying for Nandorin instead of Sindarin. He wasn't sure if he had properly managed to convey gratitude, and the tone was definitely wrong. Caranthir cursed himself for not paying more attention when he learned Primitive Quendian and Telerin as a child. If he had mastered those languages, surely this dialect of Sindarin would not have posed a problem for him.

Gladhrien tentatively pressed her fingertips onto the back of his hands, and shook her silvery head. An oddly weighty look passed over her faintly-freckled face. "You must let go," she told him, with an expression like a mother explaining something to her reluctant, troubled child.

That expression seemed inappropriate, but to be fair, the robin was trembling like a creature caught in a thunderstorm. Caranthir didn't want it to die of a nervous collapse in his hands; _that _would spoil the mood too. He opened his hands, and the robin took off without so much as a fare-thee-well. It disappeared over the lush green landscape, a black speck soon swallowed by trees.

When nothing more could be seen of the bird, Gladhrien turned to him and smiled again. "There!" she chirped brightly, reaching out to rest one hand on his cheek, her touch feather-light.

Apparently, he had learned something. Caranthir wasn't sure _what _he had learned, but in Gladhrien's mind, he had learned something. And he had learned, if nothing else, that she did not hold him hopeless. That was nice to know.

* * *

Laiquendi—Green-Elves of Ossiriand, a division of the Nandor (singular: Laiquendë) (Quenya)


End file.
